Hansen is believed to have begun killing around 1972.
[4] His
modus operandi was to pick up a prostitute in his car and force her at gunpoint to his home, where he would rape her; he would then take her out to a secluded area and "hunt" her as if she were wild game before shooting or stabbing her.
[3]It is believed by authorities that Hansen's first murder victim was 18-year-old Celia van Zanten. Van Zanten was kidnapped on December 22, 1971, and froze to death in the wilderness after escaping from her abductor; her body was discovered on December 25. Van Zanten's abduction occurred three days after Hansen assaulted a prostitute and four days before the prostitute turned him in. While there are some similarities to Hansen's modus operandi and Van Zanten's abduction, there is no conclusive evidence that he was her attacker and he himself denied involvement in her death.
[15]
On June 13, 1983, Hansen offered 17-year-old Cindy Paulson $200 to perform
oral sex; when she got into the car, he pulled out a gun and drove her to his home in
Muldoon. There, he held her captive and proceeded to rape and
torture her. She later told police that after Hansen chained her by the neck to a post in the house's basement, he took a nap on a nearby couch.
[16] When he awoke, he put her in his car and took her to
Merrill Field airport, where he told her that he intended to "take her out to his cabin" (a shack in the
Knik River area of the
Matanuska-Susitna Valley accessible only by boat or
bush plane). Paulson, crouched in the back seat of the car with her wrists cuffed in front of her body, saw a chance to escape when Hansen was busy loading the cockpit of his airplane, a
Piper PA-18 Super Cub. While Hansen's back was turned, Paulson crawled out of the back seat, opened the driver's side door and ran toward nearby Sixth Avenue.
[17]
Paulson later told police that she had left her blue sneakers on the passenger side floor of the sedan's backseat as evidence that she had been in the car. Hansen panicked and chased her, but Paulson made it to Sixth Avenue first and managed to flag down a passing truck. The driver, Robert Yount, alarmed by Paulson's disheveled appearance, stopped and picked her up. He drove her to the Mush Inn, where she jumped out of the truck and ran inside. While she pleaded with the clerk to phone her boyfriend at the Big Timber Motel, Yount continued on to work, where he called the police to report the barefoot, handcuffed girl.
When
Anchorage Police Department (APD) officers arrived at the Mush Inn, they were told that Paulson had taken a cab to the Big Timber Motel. APD officers arrived at Room 110 of the Big Timber Motel and found Paulson, still handcuffed and alone. She was taken to APD
headquarters, where she described the perpetrator. Hansen, when questioned by APD officers, denied the accusation, stating that Paulson was just trying to cause trouble for him because he would not pay her
extortiondemands. Although Hansen had several prior run-ins with the law, his meek demeanour and humble occupation as a baker, along with an
alibi from his friend John Henning, kept him from being considered as a serious suspect.
